The present invention relates, in general, to a control apparatus of a Global Input Output (GIO) line and a control method thereof and, more particularly, to an apparatus for controlling a GIO line and a control method thereof in which a GIO termination unit included in a GIO line, that is, a shared line between banks is controlled according to a GIO line group, so that only a GIO termination unit with respect to some GIO line groups is operated according to a data transmission method.
In general, data lines used in a semiconductor memory device are classified into Segment I/O (SIO) lines, Local I/O (LIO) lines, and GIO lines and so on according to their locations.
The role of each IO line according to the read path is described below. After data of a cell bit line is amplified in response to a column select signal, it is loaded on the SIO lines. The data loaded on the SIO lines is loaded on the LIO lines that share the SIO lines of the cell segment blocks. The data loaded on the LIO lines normally drives a read driver. The data is inverted and amplified and is then loaded on the GIO lines. The GIO lines are bank sharing lines and are driven by respective banks. The data of the GIO lines is output through a desired data pad by means of a receiver, so that a read operation is performed.
In the above structure, however, the chip area is increased as the capacity of a semiconductor device increases. If the length of the GIG line is lengthened, the data of the GIO line is toggled through full swing, thereby making a signal delayed and making a high-speed operation difficult. There is also a problem in that coupling noise in which neighboring lines are affected occurs severely. To solve the problems, there was disclosed a method of using a GIO termination structure (Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0631174).
In the GIO termination structure disclosed in the above patent, the structure of a data output device for the GIO lines is improved in order to reduce the swing width of data transmitted through the GIO lines, enable high-speed data transmission, and reduce coupling noise with respect to neighboring lines.
In using the GIO termination structure, there are no significant problems in the case of X16 products because the entire GIO lines are used. In the case of X8 or X4 products, however, power is unnecessarily consumed because the whole GIO lines are terminated.